When my son was 7 years old, he was Googling “The Incredibles” on the computer that we keep in the kitchen. At some point, he pulled up a doctored picture of the Incredibles family, showing them naked.
“What…on… earth?” he said in surprise.
I walked over, saw what was going on, and closed the window. “Yeah, I know,” I told him. “Some people like pictures of naked people. The Internet is full of all kinds of things.” And life went on.
My thinking was this: a seven-year-old is so far from puberty, naked pictures don’t yet have any of the baggage that we adults associate with them. Sex has no meaning yet; the concept produces no emotional charge one way or another.
Today, not only is my son utterly unscarred by the event, I’m quite sure he has no memory of it whatsoever.
Here are a couple of key selections from this research:
99% of victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes were 13 to 17 years old…none were younger than 12
Posting personal information online does not, by itself, appear to be a particularly risky behavior.
Social networking sites such as MySpace do not appear to have increased the risk of victim ization by online molesters.
Patterns of risky online behavior make youths vulnerable. (risky behavior defined as making contact with strangers and engaging in sexual talk)
There is no empirical evidence that posting personal information, by itself and independent of engagement in a pattern of online risky behavior, puts youths at risk for sexual victimization. Further, millions of youths use social networking sites safely, and we have not found evidence that these sites are more risky than other online venues popular with youths. Rather than focusing on types of online sites or non-interactive pursuits such as posting information, prevention messages should focus on online interactions because Internet-initiated sex crimes come about through direct communications between offenders and victims. This includes educating youths about the specific kinds of Internet interactions that are most associated with victimization, such as talking online about sex to unknown people. At the same time, judicious online contact with unknown people is not harmful or dangerous (Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2002; Wolak et al., in press).
Training about the internet provided in other countries showed that students who completed the course had significantly "greater awareness of the real dangers of the internet – from the hidden costs of online shopping to safety rules for chatrooms and sifting false information from good."
Overplayed Danger
Links:
MSNBC: Why parents must mind MySpace.
MSNBC: Tips for kids of different ages.
PBS: Kids online.
Tech Shout.com: Social Networking Dangers for Teens on the Internet are Exaggerated
New York Times: How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children?
Ideas and Thoughts.org: I'm Telling You for the Last Time
A Parent's Reality:
When my son was 7 years old, he was Googling “The Incredibles” on the computer that we keep in the kitchen. At some point, he pulled up a doctored picture of the Incredibles family, showing them naked.
“What…on… earth?” he said in surprise.
I walked over, saw what was going on, and closed the window. “Yeah, I know,” I told him. “Some people like pictures of naked people. The Internet is full of all kinds of things.” And life went on.
My thinking was this: a seven-year-old is so far from puberty, naked pictures don’t yet have any of the baggage that we adults associate with them. Sex has no meaning yet; the concept produces no emotional charge one way or another.
Today, not only is my son utterly unscarred by the event, I’m quite sure he has no memory of it whatsoever.
Here are a couple of key selections from this research:
Training about the internet provided in other countries showed that students who completed the course had significantly "greater awareness of the real dangers of the internet – from the hidden costs of online shopping to safety rules for chatrooms and sifting false information from good."